By Julie Conrey Record Staff Writer In 1996, Archbishop Justin Rigali of St. Louis asked Fr. Finbarr Dowling, OSB, to fill in as pastor at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic Church in Concord Hill for about 10 months until a “permanent” replacement for the church’s ailing pastor could be found. Fr. Dowling’s “temporary” assignment lasted 18 years. This week, the quick-witted Irishman with a shock of white hair and bright blue eyes is retiring from St. Ignatius the day he turns 78, and coincidentally, the day his older brother turns 79. “I’ve got lots of stuff to clean out,” he observed while walking through his white-paneled office that is home to at least three sagging bookcases chock full of texts. His personal library includes a few Bibles, “What Great Teachers Do Differently,” histories of various cultures, church teachings, foreign languages, various Chicken Soups for all kinds of souls, travel guides for European cities and plenty of material on golf. “When people find out you play golf they give you lots of things,” Fr. Dowling quipped. He started a golf program at St. Louis Priory School and it’s still going, but his game has taken a backseat to other pursuits. “It’s an outdoor hobby and I don’t get to play much. The swings are harder to come by,” he said. Golf is a parable, he says. Some people live their lives never playing in the fairway. The game takes patience, teaches one to be humble and honest. “There is a series of books written about that,” he said. “I base some of my preaching on them.” Fr. Dowling was born in Dublin, Ireland, in a home close to the ocean. “Water is in my DNA,” he said. He’s one of four children, born of parents who lived well into their 90s. His older brother is a retired engineer; his younger brother is Ireland’s pre-eminent back surgeon and in 2006 served as the first-ever non-British president of the British Scoliosis Society. His sister, a widow paralyzed from the waist down, lives in Ireland, drives her own car and travels frequently to France to visit her daughters and their families. As a young man, Fr. Dowling joined the Legion of Mary. Founded in 1921 in Dowling’s hometown of Dublin, the Legion of Mary is a Catholic lay-driven organization whose members reach out to marginalized members of society. “We worked with them in Dublin (to help) kids coming out of prison,” he said. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering and worked in England while helping immigrants. Fr. Dowling was 26 years old when he heard the call to join the Benedictine Order. The order is named after St. Benedict of Nursia who lived in the sixth century. Each abbey is autonomous and directed by an abbot. Fr. Dowling joined and lived at the Benedictine Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire, England. The order ran a boarding school for young men with an enrollment of about 800. He spent the first three years of his religious formation there. When the Benedictines discovered he had a gift for languages, they sent him to Switzerland to earn a degree in theology. He returned to the abbey in 1968. His “boss” as Fr. Dowling called the abbot, told him he needed to find out how families lived. He was sent to a parish in Wales. When he got there, he was given “territory” to cover and a bicycle he rode from house to house introducing himself. “If you call yourself a shepherd you have to smell like your sheep,” Fr. Dowling said, repeating a line Pope Francis has used during his pontificate to rally priests in their parish work. While in Wales, Fr. Dowling played second division rugby every Saturday. “It taught me a lot about coaching,” he said. “Pastors are coaches.” When he returned to the abbey, he taught religion, math, French, woodwork, went to church five times each day, coached a top rugby team and had a village parish he tended to every weekend, he said. In 1956, at the invitation of a few St. Louis Catholics, the Benedictine Ampleforth Abbey founded St. Louis Priory School which provides young men a college preparatory education. The Benedictines also established an abbey here, and later St. Anselm Catholic Church, a parish that serves west St. Louis County. While settling into a busy schedule, his “boss” told Fr. Dowling he wanted him to move to St. Louis. “He asked me if I would stay in St. Louis,” he said. “I said yes. Then I asked him how to get there. He said get to Chicago and go south.” In the early ’70’s, Fr. Dowling and eight monks voted to cut all ties to England and moved to St. Louis. Because of trouble obtaining a visa, Fr. Dowling arrived in St. Louis at the end of December. Someone at the abbey asked him to take visitors to the Arch. “I thought, ‘What’s the Arch?’ ” Fr. Dowling said. He found it, and rode to the top in a small car with the visitors and a breastfeeding mother. “That’s just not something you see in Europe,” he said. Life moved on. He taught and coached at Priory, and within six months was made dean of students responsible for student activities. Fr. Dowling was headmaster at Priory from 1983 to 1992. The following year he worked in ministry in Florissant. He spent the next three years teaching and coaching at Priory. The next 18 years were spent on a “temporary” assignment at St. Ignatius. Fr. Dowling’s ministry has also included participation in ongoing dialogue with Muslims, an area in which he says a lot of work needs to be done. Along with nine other monks he traveled to Rome in 2011 and to Qum, Iran, in 2012 to meet with 10 Koran scholars. “The sessions were dialogue meetings,” Fr. Dowling said. Following his retirement from St. Ignatius, he’ll spend four weeks covering for a priest in Japan, Mo., which is southwest of Marthasville, he says. From there, he’ll return to the monastery to see what needs to be done. “I don’t think I’ll be back in the classroom. More likely I’ll be working with adults,” Fr. Dowling said. When asked what he’ll miss most about St. Ignatius and the life he’s had for the last 18 years, he hesitated a few moments. “It’s the openness of schedule and open doors. My doors are always open so (parishioners) can come in whether they need help or just to drop off a meal. When you go back to a monastery everything is scheduled and I live in one room.” As for meals, there’ll be about 20 guys at a table, said Fr. Dowling. “They read to you,” he remarked. “You don’t talk.” The Archdiocese of St. Louis has named Fr. Terry J. Borgerding, senior associate pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Florissant, pastor of St. Ignatius. He’ll preside at morning Masses beginning this week. Fr. Borgerding will reside with his father in Dutzow for a few days so the rectory can be “purified.” Auxiliary Bishop Edward Rice of St. Louis will come to the parish and install the new pastor at a Saturday evening Mass in the near future. As for returning to active ministry in parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Fr. Dowling didn’t hesitate to answer. “(The abbey) gets calls every day for priests,” he said.
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